Getting Your Book Published For Dummies

By Sarah Parsons Zackheim and Adrian Zackheim

There’s never been a better time to be an author!

Books like the Harry Potter series create a media phenomenon, with people lining up and camping outside bookstores to purchase newly released titles. Yet book sales overall – not just those of mega-sellers – are on the rise, as more and more people seek knowledge and entertainment through reading. The Library of Congress currently registers about 60,000 new titles for copyright each year. 60,000 books by 60,000 authors. Imagine yourself as one.

Getting Your Book Published For Dummies is your complete guide to realizing whatever gem of an idea you’ve been carrying with you. If you’ve ever thought, “this would make a really good book,” be it the next great American novel or a guide to naming babies, here’s your chance to put pen to paper and find out! Written from both sides of the editor’s desk – by a widely published writer and a HarperCollins veteran publisher – this guide puts in your hand the advice you need to:

• Pick an idea
• Approach the publisher
• Craft proposals and queries
• Work with agents, or act as your own
• Self-publish
• Negotiate a contract
• Create the actual book
• Sell your published book

Full of examples, proposals, query letters, and war stories drawn from the authors’ extensive experience, Getting Your Book Published For Dummies shows you how to clear all the hurdles faced by today’s writers – freeing up precious time for you to refine your manuscript. You’ll get the inside scoop on:

• Titling your book
• Major publishers, smaller houses, niche publishers, university presses, and spiritual and religious publishers
• The 12 elements of a successful nonfiction proposal
• How editors read queries
• Submitting fiction
• Publishing outside the box
• And much more

Getting Your Book Published For Dummies is the clear, A-Z handbook that makes the entire process  plain and practicable. You don’t need to be a celebrity. You don’t need to be some kind of publishing insider. All you need to do is write.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Mar 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781118053621

Book preview

Part I

Getting Started

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In this part . . .

A book begins as an idea and builds from there. In this part, you find out where book ideas come from and how to spot a good one when you see it. I clue you in to the important criteria publishers use to evaluate whether your idea has book potential and how best to get your idea on paper.

Chapter 1

The Idea. It’s the Heart of Your Book

In This Chapter

bullet Finding the writer in you

bullet Opening yourself to inspiration

bullet Choosing a book idea

There’s never been a better time to be an author. Book sales are increasing, and more books, by a broader range of authors than ever before in history, are available. Bookstores are proliferating, from malls, to giant superstores, to the book tables at warehouse clubs and mass merchants. Internet book sales are exploding. And celebrities, like Oprah Winfrey with her televised book club, are making reading the in thing.

So go ahead. Take the first step to being a published writer. Look inside yourself (or out) for that gem of an idea that sparks a new book. You may already have an idea that’s been germinating. If so, skip ahead to Chapter 2. Other-wise, I show you how to spot potential book ideas. The trick is being open to all you read, see, and hear (or overhear). And, it helps to look honestly at what your reasons are for wanting to become a published author.

Three Main Reasons to Get Published

Some first-time authors are instant celebrities and millionaires to boot. You see them interviewed on TV and think, Hey, I can write a book like that. And you’re probably right. The only difference is, they’ve done it. Now it’s your turn.

You need to look at exactly why you want to write a book. Take it from me, writing an entire book is a lot of work. So, what’s in it for you?

You have an uncontrollable urge to write

Some people are consumed with an inner need to write. They wake up in the middle of the night compelled to get down thoughts that just can’t wait until daylight. Writing is as natural as breathing to these folks. There is simply no stopping it.

While some writers are born with this urge, it can also arise later in life as it did for Stephen King. After marrying Tabitha Spruce, a poet, King began writing at a furious pace. Undeterred by the rejection of three novels and dozens of short stories, King continued to write. Finally, in 1974, Doubleday accepted Carrie, a horror novel about a high school girl with frightening telekinetic power. Best-selling books have poured out of him at a prodigious pace ever since.

You have a story to tell

You may have a story inside that’s bursting to get out. In fact, it can sometimes feel as if the characters are coming to life on paper and all you’re doing is holding the pen! After retiring from his job as a New York City schoolteacher, Frank McCourt sat down to write the harrowing story of his Irish boyhood. Titled Angela’s Ashes (Scribner, 1996), his book won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. It also became a #1 New York Times Bestseller, which goes to show that some stories just need to be told.

You’re an expert

You may want to help others lead a more successful or fulfilling life by sharing your expertise. Whether it’s stress control as prescribed in Richard Carlson’s Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (Hyperion, 1997) or a list of success skills like those Stephen R. Covey gives us in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the market for how-to information is limitless. If your topic has wide enough appeal, you may just hit it big.

As an added bonus, writing a book on your area of expertise might provide that extra boost to your business — making you a household name. It worked for Martha Stewart who started as a caterer in Westport, Connecticut, before writing Entertaining (Crown Publishing, 1982). And for John Gray, a monk turned psychologist who used his ideas about resolving the natural differences between men and women in his marital therapy practice. Then he wrote Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (HarperCollins, 1992), and the rest is history.

Ideas Are All Around You

So you know you want to write a book — you just don’t know what you want to write about. For many people, it’s not uncommon to think that you need to write about something exotic or different or strange — that the familiar just could not be appealing to readers. But the opposite is often true. Writing, after all, is a form of understanding; you write best about things you know best. What seems familiar to you might seem very exotic to your reader. Your perception of a familiar truth might trigger insight and pleasure in your readers. And countless books — not to mention countless bestsellers — have been written about the most ordinary details of the most ordinary lives.

Start with what you know

Tip

What you know, before you do a minute’s research, is the best place to start your idea search. Pay close attention to common, everyday experiences, whether at home or at work. What may seem drab or ordinary on the surface might actually be a book in disguise.

Job experience

Scott Adams, a middle manager for a large phone company in California, discovered that the drab and ordinary wasn’t so dull after all. As an aspiring cartoonist, he jotted down notes on the interactions he saw at work during the day and turned them into cartoons at night. Today, Scott’s cartoon strip, Dilbert, appears in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide and his books, The Dilbert Principle (HarperBusiness, 1996), Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook (HarperBusiness, 1996), and The Dilbert Future (HarperBusiness, 1997), which depict the reality of life in the office, have sold millions of copies.

Likewise, Michael Lewis kept his eyes and ears open while working at Solomon Brothers, an investment bank in New York City. While thousands of others enjoyed the same access to the trading floor that Lewis did, it was Lewis who had the vision to see a story in the life of a New York City trader. While the tale played itself out right before his eyes, Lewis wrote it all down in Liar’s Poker (W. W. Norton, 1989), which became an immediate runaway bestseller. Writing what he saw on the job launched Lewis into a whole new career. He hasn’t set foot on the trading floor since.

Hobbies

If it fascinates you, no doubt it interests others, too. So when you’re looking for book ideas, think long and hard about your hobby. Whether it’s helicopter skiing or collecting first edition books, your prospects are better if you know and care deeply about what you write. Your passion may prove inspirational to readers.

Tip

And whatever aspect of a hobby you find most interesting is the way to slant your book idea. Say, for example, that baseball is your passion. You could write a reference guide (Baseball by the Rules, by Glenn Waggoner, Taylor, 1987), a how-to (The Art of Hitting, by Tony Gwynn, Good Times Publishing, 1988), a specialized guide (The Sports Fans Guide to America, by Mike Tulumello, Longstreet Press, 1999), general information (Total Baseball, by John Thorn, et al., Total Sports, 1999), or moneymaking ideas for how to bet on your local team’s games (Baseball Insight Annual by Phil Erwin, Parrish Publications, 1999). Just make sure that the topic works for you.

Advertising executive Ed Levine toiled with clients by day and shopped for food and drink by night. Among his friends, Ed was the man in the know if you wanted an exotic ingredient or were in search of the best barbecue or croissant or egg cream. Food may not have been Ed’s job, but it was his life! Friends repeatedly told Ed that he could write the book on New York food. In 1992, he did just that. New York Eats published by St. Martin’s Press is the bible of food in New York. Totally updated with 200 new entries in 1997, New York Eats (More) was runner-up for the prestigious Julia Child Reference Book Award, further establishing Ed as a fixture in the New York food world. And today, advertising is a distant memory.

Look inside for inspiration

If you don’t know what you want to write about, think about the following questions.

What do you wish you had more time for?

If you could take a year off with full pay, what would you do?

What are you most curious about?

What do you devote the majority of your time and attention to?

What event do you look most forward to?

Do people consistently ask you for advice on a specific topic?

What are your pet issues?

What do you think about when you allow your mind to wander?

Which personal experiences do people often ask you about?

What is your biggest concern?

Personal experience

Remember

Your own personal experience can be a great place to start your search for a book idea. After all, you’re the only expert on this topic. Your life experience is unique to you; no one else has encountered exactly what you have. Your style, thoughts, opinions, attitudes, and desires are also unique.

Many successful first-time book authors have gone this route. Take Frances Mayes, for example, a professor at San Francisco State University, who along with her husband fell in love with an abandoned old villa in Tuscany. Together, they purchased the place, completely renovated it, and discovered the joys of another culture. All the while, Mayes kept a personal record of the experience. This memoir, titled Under The Tuscan Sun, was published in 1996 by Chronicle Books. And even though many other books have been published about buying and remodeling run-down houses in sunny foreign countries, Under the Tuscan Sun became a bestseller. The book was very well timed, as it was published shortly after A Year in Provence (Knopf, 1990) by Peter Mayle had rocketed to the top of the bestseller lists. Like Mayle’s book, Under the Tuscan Sun was a voluptuous and witty celebration of food, people, and glorious places — Mayes keen, compelling observations brought Tuscany vividly alive for millions. (See Chapter 2 for more on the importance of timing.)

Before the birth of my two sons, I immersed myself in the research of names, from the most common to the absurdly obscure, including meanings, derivations, connotations, and more. After choosing to name our first son Adrian after my husband and deciding on the classic name David for our second, I realized I had to write a baby name book with all the information I had collected. So was born my first book, Choose the Perfect Name for Your Baby, (Walden Books, 1992). Unlike other baby name books, mine included entertaining sidebars. These, alongside the 10,000 names, made the book fun to read as well as thought provoking. By writing it myself, I was able to create the exact baby name book I had looked for, and I was certain others would enjoy it, too.

Indulge a passion

What you care most about, whether it’s belly dancing or growing your own herbs, is likely to lead you to a publishable book idea. And what’s better than getting paid to revel in the pastime you love?

Andres Martinez, a young journalist, turned his passion for gambling into a book. On the strength of a brilliant proposal, he persuaded Villard Books to advance him $50,000 with the understanding that he would wager all of it in Las Vegas and then write about the experience. The result, after wagering every penny and walking away with only $5,000 in winnings, is a book titled 24/7, published in November 1999. (See Chapter 8 for more on how to write a proposal.)

Take classes

Taking classes of any kind is always a good idea — it can expose you to new influences, a new outlook, and also potential book ideas. David Denby, a movie critic for The New Yorker magazine, was inspired at the age of 48 to re-enroll at his alma mater, Columbia University, and repeat two core curriculum classes: Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization. He read what the students read and kept careful notes of his reactions — not only to the classics (he loved them all over again) but to the teachers, the students, the process of education, even the events in his own life while attending school. The result was Great Books (Simon & Schuster, 1996) — by no means Denby’s first published work, but definitely his first New York Times bestseller.

Identify a need

The old business axiom, find a need and fill it, is alive and well in the world of book publishing. Diet books like The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet (Rachel and Richard Heller, NAL, 1993) or exercise books like Body for Life (Bill Philips, HarperCollins, 1999) or lifestyle books like The Art of Happiness (The Dalai Lama, Riverhead, 1999) are filling a big need as you can tell by their extended stay on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Tip

Look around and see what need you can fill. Timeliness is key. Take John Kilcullen, who during the early days of personal computers noticed that computer manuals were almost impossible to understand for a nonengineer. As desktop computers became more and more powerful, he recognized the need for easy-to-read manuals written for the lay person. So came the brilliant idea of writing a comprehensive manual for DOS, a popular computer program, in lay language, aimed at nonengineers and nonexperts (dummies). DOS For Dummies by Dan Gookin (IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.) was the beginning of a string of similar bestsellers and eventually the establishment of a huge publishing empire. IDG is also the publisher of this book.

Collect fascinating information and tidbits and create a book

Are your drawers bulging with favorite articles and clippings of references on your hobby or pet subject? If so, you may be on the road to writing a best-selling book. That’s what happened to Sarah Ban Breathnach, whose first two books on Victorian family life didn’t exactly set the world on fire.

While living the life of a writer and full-time mother in suburban Maryland, her stressed and scattered existence seemed to catch up with Ban Breathnach. Life had become an out-of-body experience, she recalls. I was going so fast from one task to another. I always had the feeling there was my spirit trying to catch up with me. On the surface, I had a polished sheen of success, but inside I felt like the hollow chocolate Easter bunny. If I was pressed too hard, I would crumble.

As Ban Breathnach told the Toronto Star in 1996, she was coping. But she wasn’t happy. So, she did something about it. Wanting to find out what did make her happy, she stepped back and spent five years thinking, writing, and sorting through a mountain of materials she had accumulated on the subject of leading a simpler life.

The result was Simple Abundance: A Day Book Of Comfort And Joy (Warner, 1995), written in the form of a diary full of essays, meditations, and homey advice, along with quotes from historical, literary, and philosophical figures. Serving as a source of inspiration to millions of women, Simple Abundance stayed at the top of the bestseller lists for years.

Idea resource

If you’re short on ideas, try these tips:

Watch television news and talk shows.

Read magazines and newspapers.

Notice emerging trends.

Study the bestseller lists.

Listen to people’s concerns.

Surf the Web.

Collect publisher’s catalogs.

Open your eyes to what goes on around you.

Case the bookstores.

Check out the government printing office’s publications.

Pay attention to what’s happening around you

Tip

Many a writing career is launched by a writer’s ability to observe life. What’s in the news? What’s popular on television? What’s going on in today’s schools? What’s happening to family structures? What are the people around you saying and doing? By staying open and aware, you’ll find lots of books just waiting to be written.

Newsweek describes Scott Turow as an extraordinarily canny and empathetic observer. Turow, a best-selling author many times over, uses what he observes as a lawyer to create suspense fiction so authentic, it reads like fact. Indeed, Turow may be one of the most observant writers of his generation. Long before he began writing fiction bestsellers, he wrote a book about his experience as a first-year law student at Harvard University titled One-L (Putnam, 1977). This book, also uncannily well observed, became a national bestseller, a law school primer, and a classic in its field.

Do you need to be a world-class observer like Scott Turow to succeed as a writer? Of course not! But his example of dogged observation can serve as an inspiration to generations of writers.

Everything you read contains possible book ideas

Nearly every writer is a reader — of the daily newspaper, at least! Hands down, the daily paper is the best source for great fiction and nonfiction ideas. A quick scan of the bestseller list proves the point.

Take, for example, Sebastian Junger, a part-time lumberjack sidelined by an on-the-job injury. Perhaps because he was feeling a bit sorry for himself, Junger walked the shoreline in Gloucester, Massachusetts, watching the waves as a terrific storm pounded the beach. Imagine being on a fishing boat in that! Junger mused.

Inspired by a newspaper account of the fate of a swordfish boat caught in that storm, the Andrea Gail, Junger sold a 50-page article to Outside Magazine. Based on that article, W. W. Norton offered Junger a contract to write a book about the Andrea Gail and that powerful storm.

And so Sebastian Junger wrote his book about swordfishermen trapped in heavy weather. Since then, The Perfect Storm (W. W. Norton, 1997) has ridden the bestseller lists for more than three years!

Study the bestseller lists

Tip

The best place to find tomorrow’s bestsellers is the place where today’s are summarized — the New York Times Bestseller List itself. Savvy authors and publishers know that many books, including huge bestsellers, have been inspired by previous bestsellers.

The success of The Perfect Storm (see the preceding section), for example, has now inspired other bestsellers. Linda Greenlaw wrote the first one, about a heroic swordfish captain profiled by Junger in his book and described as one of the best on the East Coast. Nearly two years later, The Hungry Ocean (Little Brown, 1997), Greenlaw’s own book, debuted on The New York Times Bestseller List.

The same trend applies to fiction, but to an even greater extent. In the years since the best-selling debuts of John Grisham and Scott Turow, I’ve seen many legal bestsellers by writers such as Lisa Scottoline, Linda Fairstein, Nancy Taylor Rosenberg, Steve Martini, and Richard North Patterson, all of whom emulated Grisham’s and Turow’s formula for success.

Wisdom

Best-selling success begets best-selling success. It’s well worth your time as a writer to study the bestseller list and think carefully about the patterns. Publishers are always looking for original ideas that bear an encouraging similarity to proven bestsellers — and finding an idea that tracks a best-selling trend could greatly improve your chances of landing a contract.

Chapter 2

Evaluating Your Idea

In This Chapter

bullet Determining whether your great idea is a book idea

bullet Identifying your audience

bullet Delivering bankable value

bullet Facing your competition head on

bullet Being in the right place at the right time

Eureka! Your brainstorming session has kicked out a quality idea. Maybe it’s a notion you’ve been carrying around for a decade, or perhaps you’ve only slept on it for a night or two. No matter. Before you invest further effort in development, find out whether you have a great book idea.

Additionally, your idea must sustain a book-length work, deliver dollar value to a well-defined audience, and face stiff competition from similar books already on the market. If appropriate, you also want to time your book effectively in order to benefit from events taking place in the world.

Is It a Book, a Magazine Article, or an Encyclopedia?

First, think conceptually about what a book is — a core idea broken down into subordinate ideas or chapters. A typical book of, say, 200 to 400 double-spaced pages, or 60,000 to 100,000 words, includes approximately 20 chapters of 10 to 20 pages each — roughly the organization of the book you’re reading right now, although books can be organized in many different ways.

Warning(bomb)

If your core idea can be fully developed in a single chapter or two, chances are it won’t sustain the scope of a whole book. Consider writing an article or a short story. On the other hand, if your idea warrants dozens of chapters, you may be hatching an encyclopedic work, or even a series of books.

Many aspiring writers think they have a book idea in the making, and are disappointed to discover that their idea is really an article. For example, HarperCollins editor Larry Ashmead describes a book proposal he recently received. "The writer proposed traveling through the Louisiana Cajun country in a motorboat, sampling backcountry restaurants. I think it’s a great idea for an article in Southern Living or Bon Appétit. But I didn’t see it as a book."

Wisdom

The Cajun motorboat idea might be a successful regional travel book or, in the hands of a humorist, a comic masterpiece. The distinction between article and book depends as much on how the writer shapes what he or she has to say as on the material itself. You have the power to shape what you write. For example, a writer named Henry Petroski wrote an essay on the history of the humble lead pencil that was published in book form and is now considered a classic, titled The Pencil (Knopf, 1992).

The overwhelming majority of nonfiction books are sold on the basis of a proposal. One of the first and most basic questions editors ask as they evaluate the hundreds of book proposals that cross their desks each year is, Is this a book or an article? How they answer that simple question can determine whether an idea is given an opportunity to become a full, publishable book. If an editor decides the idea is too small for a book, then the writer has a choice — either to move onto another idea or write a great article based on the idea. Who knows? The article may draw so much attention that it warrants later development into a book.

As you think about your idea, be sure to ask yourself, Is there enough here to fill 200 or more typeset pages?

Remember

Any written work, be it book or article, novel or nonfiction work, must have a logical structure, a beginning, middle, and end. There must be a sense of closure, or completion, that casts the core idea in a new and more informative light. Unlike an article, a book needs to introduce and develop a new idea in each chapter, and all the chapters must illuminate the core idea. If your core idea doesn’t contain the potential to deliver this much freight — if you find yourself attempting to stretch and pad your text even now, in the planning stages — it’s definitely time to consider a new idea.

Writing is much more effective and satisfying when you have plenty to write about. Determining whether your idea has enough scope and substance to fill a book is simple — start building an outline. If you have a book-worthy idea, the outline seems to grow naturally, expanding in every direction. You may even find it necessary to limit the narrative breadth of your work in progress. If, on the other hand, your outline begins to peter out quicker than you anticipated, you are probably better off writing an article or finding a new idea.

RoughSpot

While formulating a book idea, you must strike a balance between an idea that is too broad and an idea that is too narrow. For example, you may be inspired by the kings and queens of England. Your first impulse is to write a history of the British Royal Family. However, on sober reflection, you realize that this book could run to several thousand pages! On the other hand, you can write about a tiny aspect of the reign of a single king or queen. In this case, your best solution is either a biography of a single ruler, the history of a single family — the Stuarts or the Plantagenets, for example — or a narrower history of the entire sweep: a brief history, a social history, or a military history of the British Crown.

Who Is Your Audience?

Many aspiring authors make the mistake of thinking their book has a huge potential audience: every intelligent reader, or all women, or all mystery fans. This generalization usually isn’t true. Most readers are very discriminating; they know what they like and respond only to a book that is tailored to their exact needs and interests.

In order to reach a substantial audience, you need to target large populations of like-minded individuals — senior citizens, Internet users, courtroom drama fans, and so on — and shape your book with their needs and interests in mind.

Wisdom

While there is no exact rule on how big the potential market needs to be to spark interest from a publisher, generally speaking, most publishers must sell at least 5,000 copies of a single title — and preferably more like 10,000 to 20,000 copies — in order to make it worth their while. Hard experience has taught publishers to expect that a book is unlikely to be purchased by more than 5 percent of its target market, which means that a target market of 100,000 potential readers is needed to generate the absolute minimum sales level of 5,000 copies.

Targeting too narrow an audience can be as unsuccessful as aiming too wide. For example, I remember a book that was sponsored at Doubleday’s weekly editorial meeting by Jacqueline Onassis in the early 1980s. Jackie enthusiastically presented a manuscript she had received, written by a security expert. The book was packed full of practical advice to help wealthy people protect themselves and their loved ones from kidnapping.

After Jackie finished her pitch for the book, there was an uncomfortable silence. The editor in chief politely explained that the potential market for the book was extremely limited. Back then, only an international celebrity was likely to need such information — and he or she was hardly going to rely on a book for protection from kidnappers.

Less than 20 years later, a similar book, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence, by security consultant Gavin De Becker (Little Brown, 1997), enjoyed an extended run on the New York Times Bestseller List, which only shows how social changes can affect our taste in books. While kidnapping and random acts of violence were rare when Jackie Onassis first presented that book on protection tactics in the early ’80s, they are commonplace today, affecting normal civilians and celebrities alike.

Tailor Your Content

The annals of publishing are full of authors who benefited by targeting a very specific audience — really aimed their book at the preferences of an identifiable group — and then succeeded when word of mouth moved their book out into the mainstream.

For example, The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley, Ph.D., and William Danko, Ph.D, was originally published by a small regional publisher (Longstreet Press, 1996), as a realistic look at the attitudes and mindsets of Americans who have amassed a net worth of $1 million or more. The book was the result of a decade of research and data collection conducted by the authors through first-hand interviews, complete with myriad charts and statistics. It was aimed at readers with a strong interest in finance and marketers interested in reaching the wealthy with products and services. But the potential market for this information was much bigger.

Shortly after publication, word of mouth combined with the publisher’s marketing efforts brought the book to the attention of its true audience — anyone interested in increasing his or her net worth. TV show producers caught wind of it and after author appearances on Sixty Minutes and other network shows, the book flew right up to the top of national bestseller lists.

Another example of this phenomenon is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt (Random House, 1994), which chronicles a notorious murder in the environs of Savannah, Georgia. Originally, the book was expected to appeal to a local, southeastern audience. It did exactly that.

In fact, Berendt’s book became one of the biggest bestsellers of the ’90s, demonstrating another critical point: Accurate targeting can result in the paradoxical spread of the book far beyond the original target audience. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was exquisitely targeted at a narrowly focused readership. But the audience responded so powerfully, and created such far-reaching word of mouth, that the book began to sell outside of the target area, reaching groups of readers whom the author had never considered. Soon, the book enjoyed a huge national readership, major television exposure, and a run on the bestseller list that continued for years.

Deliver Their Money’s Worth

Books cost money, and for many consumers, it’s an either/or decision — a book or a CD, a book or a DVD. People don’t mind parting with money as long as they’re getting good value. Next time you’re in a bookstore, watch the customers. You’ll see shoppers pick up a book from one of the front tables, read the jacket flap approvingly, and then frown and replace the book when they see the price.

Your challenge, as you shape your idea into a book, is to face this issue head on. What can you offer readers that is worth their hard-earned $15 or $25?

Generally, readers buy a novel — and pay the retail price — when they are offered compelling storytelling, memorable characters, and exotic settings. In a work of nonfiction, readers feel they are getting a good deal if a book delivers in at least one of four important ways, which I cover in the following sections.

Fill a need

Remember

If you can find a genuine need and fill it, you deliver value to the reader. For example, diet books fill a need shared by millions — the need to shed excess pounds especially after a season of indulgence (Christmas) or before a season of public exposure (June/July). At these times of year especially, diet books fly off the shelves, proving that while the public may occasionally go off sweets, it will never lose its taste for books packed with new tips to help take off pounds.

Books that deliver useful information of all sorts fit into this category, from medical and parenting manuals, to gardening books, cookbooks, computer guides, and even decorating and hobby manuals.

Martha Stewart, for example, saw an opportunity in the area of imaginative food preparation and entertaining. Having run a gourmet food store along with her own catering business in Westport, Connecticut, Martha saw a trend in the making. A food revolution was underway. Suddenly, steak-and-potato Americans took an interest in fine dining. For the first time, four food magazines prospered instead of one, cooking classes were becoming popular, as was travel focused on exotic cuisine. Soon, people would want to bring this revolution into their own homes — into the way they entertained. How better to capitalize on this revolution than to show them how?

As a successful caterer and the wife of a prominent publisher, Martha masterminded lavish parties, many of them to celebrate the publication of books released by her husband’s firm. Executives and editors from other publishing houses attended these parties, and at one of her most spectacular events, Alan Merkin, then publisher of Clarkson Potter, suggested that Martha write a book on entertaining in the high style that had become her trademark.

Entertaining was published by Clarkson Potter in 1982, and the rest is history. In just a few short years, Martha Stewart went from a local caterer in Westport, Connecticut, to America’s Diva of Domesticity — a national expert on entertaining, decorating, and homemade-gift giving. Martha certainly proved that the public would buy a stylish book on a subject that interests them keenly.

Reveal a secret

Remember

People love a secret and are more than willing to pay for the inside skinny on almost any topic of interest. For example, in 1988, a former top British Intelligence agent helped write a book that revealed a long-hidden secret. Specifically, he exposed the fourth Soviet Mole, Anthony Blunt, who, along with Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and Donald